Written proof

All companies say they want to encourage their staff to improve their skills and keep learning, but in practice they don’t really want to invest in same. Especially if “invest” involves them shelling out any money.

At any rate, my employer has reinstated its tuition reimbursement benefit, announcing the revival of the program in the same email in which they unveiled the employee recognition scheme. The rules for the partial reimbursement pretty much guarantee that no one is going to be able to make any calls on the company purse, as “participation in the program must be approved by the employee’s manager, the organizational unit head and by Human Resources in advance of course registration.” And it’s been my observation and experience that the head of HR doesn’t feel like she’s done her job unless she’s interfered in other departments’ operations, particularly when there’s money involved.

And, as it turns out—these particular costs are charged to HR. So that’ll be the kiss of death.

(As an aside, reimbursement is limited to a maximum of $3000 per calendar year. I don’t know what decade the policy was written in, but graduate-level courses at schools in the D.C. area are in the neighborhood of $2000-$3000 a pop. It would take you a long time indeed to complete your degree if you were depending on the company to help you with the costs.)

However, I could stand a top-up of my skills so I had a look at some writing courses in nearby universities, and came across this listing at George Washington University:

Let me just say that I don’t really feel entirely confident in the writing instruction of an institution that misuses the verb “comprise”.

So I guess I’ll keep looking.

This week in pictures

Okay, we’re heading round the final turn to Friday, so let me just say that here’s this week:

So don’t start with me.

Recruiters 39

For a few months I’ve been getting emails from a couple of recruiters who for the most part have demonstrated themselves to be a step or two above the vast preponderance of their ilk. However, I’m beginning to wonder.

One—who calls himself Dave Johnson (although this could be a nom-de-recruit; Indian recruiters for the bottom-feeding body-shops frequently give themselves names that are meant to sound as American as the US addresses and VOIP phone numbers)—has begun to annoy me, though.

If you’ve managed to avoid getting into these people’s contact databases (by never, ever applying for a tech position online using any job board or ATS), here’s the level of stupidity that is not uncommon. On the same day, with only a couple of hours intervening, Dave sent me these two listings:

(I’ve noticed that about 50% of Dave’s emails are headed “[Some company] would like to meet with you”. Dave lies.)

Now, I’m guessing that Dave’s algorithm spat out these emails because wherever he scraped my contact details, the file had the word “product” in it. You’ll note that both job descriptions also have the word “product” in them. It’s of passing interest that they both also have to do with coffee, although to my recollection the word “coffee” does not appear in any of my professional details.

However, Dave’s algorithm seems to be bifurcated, since—even if I were inclined to branch out of the tech world into the exciting challenges of coffee demonstrations (at a Costco, in one case!), Virginia and California are on opposite ends of the country. This is the kind of geographical ignorance you find very often in the hope-you-are-doing-well emails that come from recruiters based in Bangalore, rather than in Santa Monica. (I’m tempted occasionally to ask if there are no maps of the United States in all of India.)

The thing I wonder about this whole recruiting industry is how does anyone make a living at it, when they are so stultifyingly ghastly. Can their pipeline be so huge that enough of these ridiculous gambits strike paydirt (with a big enough commission—how much could either of these two offer?) to keep Dave on good terms with his ISP?

Neither green eggs nor ham

Here’s a blast from the past that demonstrates the truth of George Santayana’s dictum that those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it.

In the run-up to the Second World War, Theodor Seuss Geisel drew some quite acerbic political cartoons as he witnessed the United States wallowing in self-congratulatory isolationism that had immediate and long-term human consequences.

The man generations of children know as Dr. Seuss was the grandson of German immigrants; he understood the wealth of perspectives newcomers contributed to the nation, as well as the forward momentum they brought as they pitched in to make life better for themselves and their children, as well as their new neighbors.

What would he make of our current regression to the 1930s, I wonder?

Gratitude Monday: big-screen kitty TV

I’m not even going to talk about how last week ended. Instead I’ll just mention that I’m very grateful for the view from my living room onto my patio and birdfeeder.

I basically armor-plated the birdfeeder pole to discourage squirrel attacks. But then discovered that I’d somehow broadcast a welcome signal for bully birds. (That's not my term, BTW; all the bird-expert sites call them that.) I don’t know what they are, exactly, but they took over the feeder, gobbled most of the seed and threw the rest onto the grown for the squirrels.

I consulted Google on how to discourage them, and came up with an interim solution: safflower seed, which the big guys don’t like (further down the road, I’ll add a caged feeder that keeps them out while allowing the smaller birds in).

So we’re back to titmice, nuthatches, finches, sparrows and others feeding, even though they toss a lot of the stuff on the ground. In the past couple of days, the cardinals have decided that they can land on the feeder instead of the ground.

(Note the torpedo squirrel baffle to the left. Yes, that's what it's called. And it works. The other day I watched a squirrel put its front paws on the base of the pole as it gazed up into the torpedo baffle. It thought about it for a while and then gave it up as a bad job. The baffle, BTW, is made out of steel. Which is one of the few materials that squirrels will not chew their way through.)

I especially get a kick out of the woodpeckers.

But I’m also enjoying the little chipmunks that skibble around—they definitely like the safflower seeds, too.

Today I’m grateful for the critters on the patio, and hoping they’ll give me strength for the week.